Jeremy Camron recently testified in front of the Kentucky General Assembly in support of a bill sponsored by Rep. DJ Johnson and supported by the Kentucky Association of School Administrators (KASA) and the Kentucky Association of School Superintendents (KASS). House Bill 194 allows students in alternative education settings to take the General Educational Development test if they are not on track to graduate from a traditional high school.
Camron, who serves as principal at Owensboro Day Treatment, is president of the Daviess County Administrator Association and is a member of the KASA board of directors. He testified on Jan. 11 on behalf of approximately 24,000 students who are enrolled in alternative education programs in Kentucky. That figure represents about 3% of the student population statewide. Camron testified that most of those students are making appropriate academic progress in their programs, but there are some whose circumstances have created barriers to success.
Camron said students in alternative programs who are 17 years old or older and who have not earned sufficient credits to graduate from high school “often resign themselves to failure, and simply become another dropout statistic. Basically, they look at their situation and say, ‘Why bother?’ But by allowing these students to obtain a GED certificate, they can turn from dropouts into students who can continue with postsecondary education, learn a trade or enlist in the military.”
According to KASA, as recently as 2012, Kentucky offered a secondary GED pathway that was available to high school students who were significantly below grade level. That path was discontinued when greater emphasis was placed on high school graduation and the dropout age was raised to 18.
In 2017, the late Rep. Bam Carney sponsored a bill that advocated the option of a GED for state agency children,* many of whom had endured trauma, poverty or abuse. That bill was passed and became KRS 158.143. The passage of HB194 amends that statute to expand the availability of the GED pathway to students who are not state agency children but who may have also experienced trauma, poverty, abuse or a lack of success in a traditional high school program.
“HB194 gives these students hope for a successful future, where they may have believed there was none,” Camron said.
